TABLE 1.

Roles and effects of fucosylated oligosaccharides.

Role/Effect	Example	Reference
ABO and Lewis blood group	Contain fucosylated oligosaccharides and differences in expression affect the host’s susceptibility to many infections	Matzhold et al. (2021), Skurska et al. (2022)
Cancer and biomarker	High amounts of fucosyl-linked oligosaccharides in the serum of cancer patients are frequently associated with prognosis	Zhang et al. (2006), Miyoshi et al. (2012), Zhang et al. (2014)
Apoptosis	Changes observed in the oligosaccharide structures of cell surface molecules and fucose residues increase after apoptosis	Russell et al. (1998), Rapoport and Le Pendu (1999), Staudacher et al. (1999)
Host–pathogen interaction and prebiotic effect	Pathogens recognize and bind to human tissues using a receptor with high specificity against fucose on the cell surface or homologs of these structures prevent pathogen attachment	Imberty and Varrot (2008)
Sperm–egg interaction and early embryogenesis	The binding sites on the sperm have a high affinity for the fucosylated oligosaccharides found on the egg. During early embryogenesis, the chains of these oligosaccharides undergo a series of modifications	Dravland and Mortimer (1988), Boldt et al. (1989), Liu et al. (1999), Song et al. (2007)
Neurobiological functions	Fucosylated oligosaccharides regulate nervous system function and development such as neurite outgrowth, neurite migration, and synapse formation	Artavanis-Tsakonas et al. (1979), Okajima and Irvine (2002), Haines and Irvine (2003), Murrey and Hsieh-Wilson (2008)